When most people think of think tanks, they may picture soporific talks on the minutiae of energy policy or foreign affairs, men in suits pontificating about esoteric executive branch regulations, or 100-page policy proposals to update the Merchant Marine Act of 1920.

While all that exists, a much darker side lies just under the surface, one that involves PR gurus, lobbyists, foreign governments, spy agencies, embassies, corporations, trade associations, political hacks, shady consultants, and various categories of movers and shakers all trying to gather information and influence ideas and the thousands of scholars that live in and around Washington.

A Maryland man has pleaded guilty to charges that he failed to register
as a foreign agent in connection with lobbying work he did for the
Pakistani government in an effort to shape U.S. foreign policy, the
Justice Department said on Monday.

The newly unsealed case against Nisar Ahmed Chaudhry, a Pakistani
national and U.S. permanent resident, marks a rare instance in which the
Justice Department has pursued a prosecution under the Foreign Agents
Registration Act, which requires people who lobby on behalf of foreign
governments or political parties to register with the United States.

In Chaudhry’s case, filed April 19 and unsealed on Monday, the
government said he worked to influence U.S. officials on foreign
policies toward Pakistan from 2012 through 2018 without disclosing it.

The
Justice Department said he represented that his activities were merely
educational and not affiliated with Pakistan’s government when he met
with think tank scholars and current and former U.S. government
officials, including U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents who
interviewed Chaudhry when he returned to the United States from travels
to Pakistan.

Chaudhry interacted on a routine basis with representatives of the
Government of Pakistan, at their Embassy in Washington, D.C. and
consular office in New York City. Chaudhry also interacted with
numerous institutes, foundations and organizations operating in and
around Washington, D.C., commonly referred to as "think tanks," that
played a role in shaping and influencing U.S. foreign policy. Chaudhry
organized roundtable discussions in Washington, D.C. and Maryland
metropolitan areas between his American government and think tank
contacts and visiting Pakistan government officials to influence United
States foreign policy in a direction favorable to Pakistan’s interests.
Chaudhry cultivated contacts within these entities and the U.S.
government in order to obtain in-depth information regarding the U.S.
government's policies towards Pakistan. Chaudhry then sought to
neutralize unfavorable views of Pakistan held by current and former U.S.
government officials by employing certain methods of discussion with
these individuals during personal interactions with them and/or by
controlling and manipulating discussion at the roundtable events he
organized or attended.

In order to be more effective in obtaining information of interest to
Pakistan, and to gain a strategic advantage in acquiring information
that might not otherwise be divulged to official representatives of the
Government of Pakistan, Chaudhry falsely represented that his activities
were solely educational in nature and not affiliated with the Pakistan
government. These representations were made not only to American think
tank scholars, but also to current and former U.S. government officials,
including U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents who interviewed
Chaudhry upon entry into the United States from his travels to Pakistan.

According to his plea agreement, Chaudhry regularly traveled to
Pakistan to brief high-level Pakistan government officials on
information obtained from his American government and think tank
contacts.

It has not been publicly disclosed which think tanks Chaudhry frequented, but a link from the Embassy of Pakistan shows that the government of Pakistan has embraced a number of think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation, United States Institute of Peace (USIP), Atlantic Council, Wilson Center, New America, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Even with all of those interactions, US-Pakistan relations have taken a nosedive in recent months. Most recently, the US and Pakistani governments formally imposed mutual curbs on the travel and movements of each other's diplomats. Now, Pakistani diplomats and their families cannot travel more than 25 miles from Washington without prior permission. In other words, they are essentially stuck riding the think tank circuit in DC and nearby environs. The good news? There are about 500 think tanks to choose from.

Friday, May 25, 2018

This year, former New York City mayor and financial
media billionaire Michael Bloomberg is debuting a conference to rival
the Davos conference, one he and his partners say will focus on the
changing global economy and the need for greater understanding between
the United States and China.

Enter: The New Economy Forum.

The Forum will bring 400 world and
business leaders to Beijing for two days in November to address
topics such as technology, global governance and urbanization.
Bloomberg is partnering with the China Center for International Economic
Exchanges, a Beijing-based “think tank with Chinese characteristics” and which is led by former state vice premier, Zeng Peiyan, who will co-chair the forum’s advisory board.

Bloomberg also tapped former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, as
well as former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, to drive the
Forum’s content and design. Advisory board members include former
Secretary-General of the U.N. Ban Ki-moon, President Trump’s former top
economic adviser Gary Cohn and Janet Yellen, former chair of the U.S.
Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Leaders of eleven other corporations
and institutions have signed on as partners.

Here is a link to the China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE), which notes that the forum will take place Nov. 6-8 in Beijing.

On May 15-16, the 10th US-China CEO and Former Senior Officials' Dialogue was held in Beijing by CCIEE and the US Chamber of Commerce.

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Here is more from The New York Times, in a piece entitled "White House Considers Restricting Chinese Researchers Over Espionage Fears."

The Trump administration, concerned
about China’s growing technological prowess, is considering strict
measures to block Chinese citizens from performing sensitive research at
American universities and research institutes over fears they may be
acquiring intellectual secrets, according to people familiar with the
deliberations.

The White House is
discussing whether to limit the access of Chinese citizens to the United
States, including restricting certain types of visas available to them
and greatly expanding rules pertaining to Chinese researchers who work
on projects with military or intelligence value at American companies
and universities. The exact types of projects that would be subject to
restrictions are unclear, but the measures could clamp down on
collaboration in advanced materials, software and other technologies at
the heart of Beijing’s plan to dominate cutting-edge technologies like advanced microchips, artificial intelligence and electric cars, known as Made in China 2025.

The details are still under discussion and it is not known how many
people could be affected, but restrictions would probably fall most
heavily on graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and employees of
technology companies in the United States on temporary visas. More than
one million foreign students study in the United States each year, with
roughly one-third coming from China.

As Think Tank Watch has reported numerous times in the past, think tanks are hotbeds for spying activity. The above-mentioned piece cites a Defense Department study which found that nearly a quarter of all efforts to obtain sensitive or classified information in 2014 were routed through academic institutions.

Skadden Arps' Greg Craig, who authored a report that's been entangled in Mueller's investigation into Paul Manafort, and who served as Obama White House counsel, is joining Truman National Security Project as a senior adviser.

Splinter reporter looking for gossip on think tanks and other Washington institutions.

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

While many hands gripped the sword that
undercut the Iran nuclear deal, no one outside the Trump administration
was a more persistent or effective critic than Mark Dubowitz, the chief
executive of a hawkish Washington think tank [Foundation for Defense of Democracies, of FDD].

But
rather than publicly celebrate President Trump’s decision Tuesday to
jettison the accord, he is mourning its demise, saying he genuinely
wanted to fix the agreement and worries that its unraveling could be
dangerous.

That lament, though, has enraged the pact’s supporters, who never saw a
fix as remotely palatable to Mr. Trump and blame Mr. Dubowitz above all
others for providing the intellectual foundation for its passing. They
now say he is trying to distance himself from the potentially
catastrophic results.

During the congressional debate on the deal, he and his foundation colleagues testified in opposition to the deal 17 times
over an 18-month period. By contrast, officials from the American
Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, more established
conservative think tanks, testified only once.

More
recently, Mr. Dubowitz was the only nongovernmental official routinely
consulted by both European and American negotiators in a monthslong
back-and-forth over a possible side agreement to the deal, and he
sometimes reviewed secret drafts. He wrote, according to two
administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, parts
of a report on Iran that Brian H. Hook, the chief American negotiator in
the recent talks, took to White House meetings — a highly unusual step.
He advised many of the deal’s most prominent critics on Capitol Hill.

But he is far from the usual tweedy
think-tanker. Raised in Canada, trained as a lawyer and having worked in
venture capital, Mr. Dubowitz wears tailored French suits and keeps his
curly hair just so. In 2016, he received $560,221 in compensation as
the foundation’s chief executive.

Top officials in the Obama administration often dismissed Washington’s foreign policy think tanks
as paid agents of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,
countries that annually invest tens of millions in the Washington
influence game.

The Free Beacon notes that the New York Times had to issue multiple corrections to the story. NewsBuster details the corrections. Following are the corrections, as outlined by NYT:

An earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to the salary of
Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive of Foundation for Defense of
Democracies, when compared with those of leaders of other Washington
think tanks. Mr. Dubowitz’s $560,221 compensation in 2016 was determined
by the foundation’s board of directors and is commensurate with the
average annual salary of other think tank leaders in Washington in
recent years. It is not nearly twice as much as the salaries of his
counterparts. The article also inaccurately linked the foundation to
Israel’s Likud party. While the think tank does align with some of
Likud’s positions, it is not directly involved with the party. The
article also referred imprecisely to the funding of conferences held by
the foundation and the Hudson Institute. While Elliott Broidy provided
$2.7 million in funds for consulting, marketing and other services, the
foundation says it received only $360,000 from Mr. Broidy for one
conference.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch piece about FDD and how it punches above its weight.

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Earlier this year, leaders from the Marine Corps, the
Department of Homeland Security, NASA, the NSA, the White House, and the
FBI gathered at a Ritz-Carlton in Virginia to discuss the latest in
cybersecurity and information warfare.

The event was organized by
the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, a nonprofit think
tank founded just a few years ago that quickly established itself as a
convener of well-attended cybersecurity events, a facilitator of Capitol
Hill briefings, and the beneficiary of hundreds of thousands of dollars
in sponsorships from top private sector security vendors.

The
day’s closing session featured James Scott, ICIT’s senior fellow and
cofounder, discussing Russian cyberinfluence operations and his new book
about information warfare. What audience members from intelligence and
law enforcement agencies didn’t know is that Scott and ICIT have been
running their own deceptive information operation.

BuzzFeed News
identified a network of at least 45 fake Twitter accounts being used to
amplify ICIT content and Scott’s book, as well as a group of fake
YouTube accounts that upload and like ICIT videos and frequently post adoring comments about Scott on content featuring him.

Reporting
by BuzzFeed News has also established that Scott, ICIT’s top expert,
previously sold spammy and fake social media engagement services, has a
history of manufacturing flattering articles about himself and his
ventures using dubious SEO techniques, and ran companies that are
magnets for online complaints about dishonest business practices. His
background in information security also primarily consists of
self-published books on the topic that he only began publishing in 2013.

ICIT will be holding its annual forum on June 18 at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, DC. Sponsors of that event include McAfee, Micro Focus Government Solutions, Centrify, Skybox Security, Cylance, Garrison, and KPMG. Epoch Times is a "partner" for the event.

Here is a Think Tank piece from 2015 about a fake think tank apparently set up by Russia to project its power.

Here is a 2017 Think Tank Watch story about a fake think tank that had been uncovered. Here is another 2017 piece about fake think tanks.

Also in 2017, Russians dumped real documents hacked from the Bradley Foundation (which funds a number of think tanks), and added a forged letter indicating that the foundation had made an illegal $150 million donation to the Clinton campaign.

Monday, May 21, 2018

We should seek quality, balance and variety in the think tanks,
advocacy groups and consultancies we cite as sources of analysis and
opinion. We should quote them judiciously. In our coverage over time,
they should be scattered across the political spectrum. We shouldn’t
repeatedly quote the same voices.

Generally, we should cite the experience and views of the individual
expert rather than those of the think tank itself. That should be the
emphasis especially when the think tank’s practice is to employ scholars
of diverse views and to refrain from taking institutional positions on
policy issues. The Journal has sometimes referred to such think tanks as
nonpartisan or centrist, to distinguish them from those that are openly
partisan. With the exception of independent polling and survey
organizations, we should avoid those neutral-sounding labels. The reader
is better served with a few words about the individual expert doing the
opining—something an additional question to the expert we’re
interviewing could provide.

Other think tanks openly advocate a particular worldview, and we should
make note of that orientation—for example: liberal, conservative,
libertarian—when relevant. Generally, however, it is more useful simply
to cite that entity’s current or past position on the particular issue
we are writing about.

Some entities we cite are more accurately referred to as advocacy
groups; they exist to advance a precise set of causes, such as those
related to the environment or human rights. When citing an advocacy
group, we should identify it as such and make clear what the group
advocates. We should generally avoid quoting advocacy groups as sources
of facts that are obtainable from neutral sources.

Most readers understand that think tanks, advocacy groups and
foundations are nonprofit, and consultancies are for-profit. Generally,
we can avoid those labels.If an organization’s funding is overwhelmingly from one source, that should be noted when appropriate.

When quoting an expert, we should check whether that person has ties
to other entities, such as corporations or lobbying groups, that could
influence his or her position or give such an appearance.

Jay Solomon, former chief correspondent for the Wall Street Journal who was fired last year for what the paper considered an unethical relationship with a source, is now a senior director at APCO Worldwide and remains a visiting fellow at WINEP.

Members of the Biden Institute Policy Advisory Board include think tankers.

Brigid Hasson, formerly in the coalition relations department at the Heritage Foundation, has joined Rational 360.

The informant, an American academic who teaches in Britain [at Cambridge University], made contact
late that summer with one campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos,
according to people familiar with the matter. He also met repeatedly in
the ensuing months with the other aide, Carter Page, who was also under
F.B.I. scrutiny for his ties to Russia.

The informant is well known in Washington circles, having served in
previous Republican administrations and as a source of information for
the C.I.A. in past years, according to one person familiar with the
source’s work.

The professor who met with both Page and Papadopoulos is Stefan Halper, a
former official in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations who has
been a paid consultant to an internal Pentagon think tank known as the
Office of Net Assessment, consulting on Russia and China issues,
according to public records.

Halper has worked as a senior foreign policy advisor to various
think-tanks and research institutions, including the Center for
Strategic and International Studies, The Center for the National Interest, where he is a Distinguished Fellow, and The Institute of World Politics where he is a Research Professor. He has served on the Advisory Board of Directors of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and contributed to various magazines, journals, newspapers and media outlets.

Friday, May 18, 2018

The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (@DFRLab)
today announced a partnership with Facebook to independently monitor
disinformation and other vulnerabilities in elections around the world.
The effort is part of an initiative to help provide credible research
about the role of social media in elections, as well as democracy more
generally.

The Atlantic Council and Facebook’s partnership will promote and
supplement @DFRLab’s existing #ElectionWatch efforts and allow for
greater capacity building with journalists and civil society to
incorporate similar methods into their own work.

The @DFRLab is
at the forefront of open source research with a focus on governance,
technology, security, and where each intersect. By publishing what it
can prove, or disprove, in real-time, the @DFRLab is creating a new
model of research and education adapted for impact, as well as building a
global network of #DigitalSherlocks. The @DFRLab remains committed to
identifying, exposing, and explaining disinformation where and when it
exists.

Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Signed boxing gloves from Muhammad Ali, documents from the Bill Clinton
impeachment and 3,000 boxes of other papers and memorabilia from a
42-year career in Washington, D.C., will be part of a library and think
tank being named for retiring U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch on Wednesday.

The Orrin G. Hatch Center is partnering with the University of Utah with
the goal of "leading a movement" toward bipartisanship and civility in
politics.

The center that's envisioned as a columned granite building will also
house a full-sized replica of Hatch's Senate office for him to write his
memoirs and meet with students.

Groundbreaking for the structure located along a row of stately Salt
Lake City buildings like the governor's mansion could be as soon as this
summer.

Tax filings show Hatch's foundation raised nearly $6 million by 2016,
the most recent year documents are available. Donations have come from
places like Visa, the NFL, the tobacco manufacturer Altria and the
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, according to
federal disclosure forms.

Similar centers include the Edward M. Kennedy Institute in Boston and the McCain Institute at Arizona State University.

The Salt Lake Tribune, which says that Hatch is looking to eventually raise $100 million, notes that the entire funding picture of the new think tank may never be known.

A number of long-serving and well-connected lawmakers have gone on to establish their own think tanks, including the above-mentioned John McCain.

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

The founder of one of the most influential pro-Brexit think tanks was
suspected of working for the Kremlin, a member of Prime Minister Theresa
May’s Conservative Party said.

[New Zealand-born billionaire] Christopher
Chandler, chairman of investment group Legatum Global Holdings Ltd, has
been an “object of interest” to French intelligence since 2002, “on
suspicion of working for Russian intelligence services,” according to
Bob Seely, a Conservative lawmaker who cited 2005 files of the Direction
de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST).

The accusation, which is denied, is significant because Chandler has
used some of his wealth to found the Legatum Institute, which has worked
with those in May’s Conservative Party who want a harder break from the
European Union. Until recently its director of economic policy was
Shanker Singham, who argued that Britain’s interests would be best
served by leaving the EU’s customs union. The institute’s “senior
fellows” include Matthew Elliott, who ran the campaign for Brexit.

The London-based Legatum Institute was founded in 2007 by the Legatum Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Dubai-based investment firm Legatum Group.

Legatum was not
always well disposed towards Brexit. Before the June 2016 referendum, it widely
seen as a liberal, pro-EU outfit. Among those employed from its Mayfair offices
were US author [and Washington Post columnist] Anne Applebaum and Soviet-born British journalist Peter
Pomerantsev.

That changed in the
wake of Brexit. Applebaum left after Philippa Stroud was appointed as CEO, in
September 2016. The eurosceptic Baroness Stroud co-founded the Centre for
Social Justice think-tank and was a special adviser to Brexiteer Iain Duncan
Smith.

In March, the think tank parted ways with Shanker Singham, a high-profile advocate of a "hard" Brexit, whose access to cabinet ministers such as Boris Johnson and Liam Fox led to a wave of negative publicity for Legatum.

About Me

Think Tank Watch is a one-stop-shop for learning and thinking about think tanks. It covers domestic and global think tank news, gossip, personnel, reports, studies, and pretty much anything else related to think tanks. Think Tank Watch can be found cruising the mean streets of "Think Tank Row" and beyond, attending scores of think tank events each year. Since its founding in 2012, Think Tank Watch has become the #1 source of think tank news and gossip in the world. Questions, comments, and tips can be sent to:
info (at) thinktankwatch.com